Barrel.



No. 679,277. Patentedluly 23, I905.

' o. n. P. EORNELL.

BARREL.

. (Application filed Dec. 28, 71900.)

(No Model.)

.- EJEAD)N& u |TH THE qnowTH OF THE TIMBER STAVE cur AT RIGHT 'ANGLE To THE QROWTH E or THE TIMBER llnrrnn brains Parent t rrent OLIVER II. P. CORNELL, OF BROOKLYN, NElV YORK.

BARREL.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 679,27 7, dated July 23, 1901.

Application filed December 26, 1900. Serial No. 41,100. (No model.)

To all whom it may concern.-

Be it known that I, OLIVER H. P. CORNELL, a citizen of the United States, residing at Brooklyn, in the county of Kings and State of New York, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Barrels; and I do hereby declare the following to be a full, clear, and exact description of the invention, such as will enable others skilled in the art to which it appertains to make and use the same.

My invention relates to packing or storing vesselssuch as barrels, casks, kegs, tubs, buckets, or other wooden vesselshas for its object the reduction of the shrinkage of thestaves of which the vessels are constructed and the equalization of the shrinkage of the staves and the heads or bottoms as nearly as possible, and consists in certain improvements, which will be fully disclosed in the following specification and claims.

The present and prevailing practice of mak-.

ing wooden articles of the kind to which my invention relates is to make the staves and the heads or bottoms of wood cut with the growth of the timber, the staves being made from stave-bolts split from a log into pieces of not over six inches on the circumference of the bolt. These bolts are placed on a stavecutter, which at every stroke of its knife cuts off a stave or veneer from the bolt, cutting nearly with the growth of the timber. It has also been proposed to saw timber into barrel material; but no attention has been given to minimizing the shrinkage of the staves or to equalizing the shrinkage of the staves and the heads, and as a consequence the staves and the heads have been made from wood cut with the growth of the timber. Under this practice or system of makingbarrels, casks, kegs, tubs, or buckets the periphery of the article always shrinks and swells from three to four times as much as the heads or bottoms, rendering it almost impossible to construct a packing vessel for dry use that will remain tight, the result of which is that barrels, kegs, or casks used for packing cement, sugar, flour, and other like materials must be lined with paper to prevent waste in handling and transporting the barrels, due to the excessive expansion and contraction of the staves and unequal expansion and contraction of the staves and the heads.

It is my purpose to reduce the labor and waste incident to making packing vessels to the minimum, to reduce the expansion or swelling and the contraction or shrinkage of staves used for the purpose, and to-equalize the shrinkage of the staves and the heads, which I accomplish by cutting off the outer surface of a piece of timber on four sides into material cut with the growth of the timher for making the heads of barrels or b0ttoms of tubs or buckets until the log has been squared, then cutting the log into sections or planks of a thickness slightly in excess of the width of a stave and turning the log a quarter of a revolution after each out, which sections or plank when out again into stave-blanks produce staves of substantially quartered material cut at approximately a right angle to the growth of the timber and in which the grain of the wood runs approximately at a right angle to the width of the stave. Staves thus made are subject to the minimum of shrinkage, and the heads being made of material cut with the growth of the timber and subject to greater shrinkage, proportionate to the material contained in them, the shrinkage or swelling of the staves and the heads is equalized as near as is possible and a tight barrel maintained.

In the accompanying drawings, which form part of this specification, Figure 1 represents a transverse section of a log of timber, showing the lines of cut to which it is subjected in making barrels of my construction; Fig. 2, a plan view of a barrel-head, the grain of the timber being indicated in light lines;

Fig. 3, a perspective view of a stave, and Fig.

4 a perspective of a completed barrel.

Reference being had to the drawings and the letters thereon, A indicates a log of timher in which the light concentric lines or circles Ct represent the growth of the timber; b, the outside boards, which are cut from the four sides and with the growth of the timber until the log is squared, and these boards are used for making heading or bottom material; 0, the sections or plank which are cut by turning the log one-fourth of a revolution after each section or plank has been severed from the log until the center piece of the log has been reached, when the last out is made through the center of it, and d the lines on which the planks are sawed to make staveblanks from which staves e are made and are cut at approximately a right angle to the growth of the timber, with the grain of the wood running at substantially a right angle to the width of the staves. Staves thus made are of substantially quartered material and subject to the minimum of shrinkage after they have been Worked into barrels, casks, kegs, tubs, or buckets.

In practice it has been found that the shrinkage of the circumference of a barrel made from staves cut from timber, as described, and the shrinkage of the heads out from timber, as described, is so nearly equal that no perceptible 0r appreciable openings or cracks are made between the staves, nor do they or the heads bulge out and become distorted by the swelling of the staves and the heads,and pulverized materials can be packed and shipped without lining the barrels or loss of material, and that the cost of manufacture v is greatly reduced.

Having thus fully described my invention, what I claim is 1. A barrel having heads made of wood cut with the growth of the timber, and staves made of wood approximately quartered, to equalize the shrinkage of the heads and the staves.

2. A barrel having heads made of Wood cut with the growth of the timber, and staves made of wood cut approximately at a right angle to the growth of the timber, to equalize the shrinkage of the heads and the staves.

3. A barrel having heads made of Wood cut with the growth of the timber, and staves having the grain running across the thickness of the staves approximately at a right angle to the width of the staves, to equalize the shrinkage of the heads and the staves.

In testimony whereof I affix my signature in presence of two witnesses.

OLIVER H. P. CORNELL.

Witnesses:

CHAS. I-I. BLAIR, ANDERSON PRICE. 

